Aron Houdini

Known as the world’s only living Houdini, Aron Houdini will be in Beaumont on March 17 to perform an escape stunt outside at the Crockett Street Entertainment Complex at 6 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

Aron will attempt to escape a regulation straight jacket while suspended from a crane. The escape is one of several tricks that sets Aron apart from other performers, as other performers use a specially tailored magician’s straight jacket. Aron added that the local police department has accepted his challenge to contain him in a device of their choosing.

If Aron fails to escape, he will be jailed for 24 hours; if he escapes, he keeps the device to sell for charity and is never required to reveal how he did it.He’s broken like a ton of bones, including his back, and currently has an ankle injury that he’s waiting to have surgery.

“I don’t know that I believe in these things; I’m just open-minded,” Aron told The Examiner. “In the last 10 years of Houdini’s life, he was always going to mediums and psychics because he believed there’s a way to contact the other side; he just never found it. I’m hopeful — something paranormal would add a whole new dimension to life in general. I’m hoping there’s a day where I can’t debunk it, and I can’t explain it.”

The great Harry Houdini (real name Ehrich Wiez) is the great, great, great uncle to Aron. Houdini’s brother, Theodore, who married his great aunt.“My grandma Iris was born and raised in Wisconsin,” he said. “Her mom, Agnes Fozzard Sanderson had a sister named Elsie. She married Theodore Weiz, who was Harry’s brother.”

Born in Chicago, Aron said he began performing his straight jacket escape to get bigger shows and states that nobody uses real straight jackets.

“The straight jacket escape is what led me into other escapes,” he said. “I have escaped upside down, under water and even escaped U.S. Marshals. All my escapes are real. How real? To date I have broke my back, six herniated discs, torn my abdomen muscle, two hernias, broke all but one finger, broke my nose, deviated septum, three knee surgeries, and seven shoulder surgeries.”

As his great uncle did, Aron also works with the paranormal including Brady and Barry Klinge of “Ghost Lab” and other shows including “Ghost Hunters International.”

“I have investigated all over the Untied States including Fort William Henry (last of the Mohican’s), Waverly Hills Tuberculosis Sanitarium, prisons and more,” Houdini said.

While at Waverly Hills in Kentucky, Aron was locked inside the autopsy room inside a freezer where bodies were kept.

“I pride myself and being locked up alone, in the dark and waiting for something to happen to me while I can’t fight.”

Aron will also take part in the second annual Texas Ghost Show on March 19 at the Beaumont Civic Center. The show will feature lectures and appearances by paranormal TV/Radio/Internet personalities. Tickets begin at $20.

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